Publisher's Notes
• NEW JOURNAL OF INTEREST
Despite its many faults as a monopolist and pull-peddler, AT&T generally provides high-quality communications services. Its newest one utilizes the printed page: THE BELL JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCE. Although paid for by AT&T, the journal is under the capable editorship of Professor Paul W. MacAvoy of the MIT Sloan School of Management, with the explicit proviso by Professor MacAvoy that he be free to select his own editorial board and establish selection criteria for articles. The purpose of the BELL JOURNAL is to "support and encourage the highest caliber research" into "the nature of regulated industries and their substantial impact on the economy."
The results to date have been interesting. Although by no means a libertarian journal, it has provided a forum for some views highly critical of government regulation. Volume 1, Number 1 (Spring 1970), contained a critical evaluation of marginal cost pricing by R.H. Coase, editor of the excellent JOURNAL OF LAW AND ECONOMICS. Volume 1, Number 2 (Fall 1970), contained a number of interesting pieces, including an analysis of the beginnings of cartelization and regulation in U.S. railroads and a critical study of the full costs of Federal Power Commission regulation. The Spring 1971 issue (already double the size of the two previous issues) leads off with an interesting analysis of the supply of and demand for government regulation, written by George Stigler of the University of Chicago. A central thesis of Stigler's paper is that "as a rule, regulation is acquired by the [regulated] industry, and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit."
Copies of the BELL JOURNAL are available free of charge to interested persons. Serious students of law and economics should write on their university or company letterhead to the Managing Editor, BELL JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCE, AT&T Company, 195 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10007.
• FOLLOWUP TO PREVIOUS ARTICLE
The unsuccesful British trade embargo against Rhodesia is expected to be lifted by the end of the year. U.S. companies will resume and expand an estimated $20 million in exports. Among the side effects of the embargo is that fact that U.S. companies have been led to buy chromium from the Soviet Union at three times the pre-embargo price of Rhodesian chrome. As Dr. Honikman pointed out in his article ("Boycott South Africa?" REASON, August 1971), trade is a much more effective (and libertarian) method of effecting change than government-imposed boycotts.